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Title: Tyranny of the Invisible Hand Author: Morpheus Date: 30th April 2004 Language: en Topics: anti-capitalism, capitalism, critique Source: Retrieved on 2nd August 2020 from https://web.archive.org/web/20070707071153fw_/http://question-everything.mahost.org/Socio-Politics/capitalism.html
âThis troubled planet is a place of the most violent contrasts. Those
that receive the rewards are totally separate from those who shoulder
the burdens. It is not a wise leadership.â
â Mr. Spock (of Star Trek), âThe Cloud Minersâ
Capitalism (also called âthe wage system,â âthe boss systemâ or âthe
profit systemâ) is exploitative and authoritarian. It cannot be reformed
and should be abolished in favor of a classless society based on
self-management. Capitalism is an economic system based on wage-labor
and profit. Wage-labor is the defining characteristic of capitalism.
Markets, while they usually accompany capitalism, are not the defining
characteristic of capitalism â wage-labor is. Markets existed long
before capitalism and in many other economic systems besides capitalism,
and one unusual form of capitalism â state monopoly capitalism â largely
does away with markets. Under capitalism the majority of the population
must sell their labor (usually via working at a job) in order to
survive.
There are two main classes in all capitalist systems: the capitalist
class (or bourgeoisie) and the working class (or proletariat). Under
some circumstances capitalism can have other classes as well, but all
forms of capitalism have at least these two classes. The capitalist
class owns the means of production (or the vast majority of them),
either directly or through organizations they control (such as
corporations), and the working class does not. Means of production are
non-human objects that are used to produce things, such as factories,
mines, land, etc. Since workers do not have access to the means of
production they must sell their labor to those who own the means of
production â the capitalist class. Members of the capitalist class, by
definition, are wealthy enough that they do not have to sell their labor
to survive [1]. They may choose to do so for whatever reason but are not
threatened with the possibility of becoming poor if they do not. This is
the basic structure of a capitalist system. The Hiltons, Rockefellers,
Waltons, Kennedys, Mellons, Murdoch, Fords, Bushes, and Carnegies (ie.
the super-rich) are all typical members of the capitalist class.
Workers are always paid less then the value of the goods they produce â
this is where profit comes from. If workers were paid an amount equal to
what they produced there would be no money left over for the
capitalistâs profit. The workers are the ones who actually produce
things, the capitalists contribute no productive labor. The capitalist
thus makes money without having to do any productive labor. As that
money is then used to purchase things that were produced by workersâ
labor, the capitalist is living off the labor of the workers. Hence,
Capitalism is inherently exploitative. The fruits of this exploitation
are distributed to members of the capitalist class not only in the form
of profit but also through dividends, interest, rent and other means.
Capitalists try to pretend this is âvoluntaryâ or ânaturalâ but it is no
more voluntary or natural then paying taxes. In order for a worker to
survive s/he must sell his/her labor and become a wage-slave. Otherwise
s/he will not be paid and will eventually starve to death. While some
form of productive labor is necessary to produce the basic necessities
needed to survive (food, shelter, etc.) there is no reason why this must
be in the form of wage-labor. For most of human history it has not.
Historically pre-capitalist societies that developed into capitalist
ones have all gone through a process called proletarianization whereby
the majority of the population was changed from their previous status
(usually of peasants) into workers (proletarians). This involved
expropriating the land and forcing the population off it [2]; thereby
putting the population in a situation where they have to sell their
labor to make a living [3]. If most live on the land (as they did in
many pre-capitalist societies) then they will not have to sell their
labor to make a living and full-fledged capitalism is impossible.
The process of proletarianization happened differently in different
places and had a number of variations with more then a few bumps on the
road. In the first societies where proletarianization started it was a
long process that was not originally initiated with the desire to create
a capitalist society but by other historical forces. One of the first
capitalist countries, England, began this with the âenclosuresâ whereby
lords would enclose land that formerly belonged to peasants and
expropriate it for themselves [4]. In Mexico the majority of
proletarianization started under President Benito Juarez and rapidly
accelerated under the dictator Porfialo Diaz. Both Juarez and Diaz were
classical liberals who believed in free market capitalism and private
property. To that end, Juarez initiated a program whereby public lands
and common lands held by Native Americans was expropriated and sold to
the highest bidder. Since they have more money, the majority of this
land got concentrated in the hands of rich capitalists. Small
landholders were often expropriated as well [5]. In most of North
America the indigenous economic systems were eventually destroyed by
force, along with the indigenous people, and replaced with a capitalist
system [6]. In some societies war played a significant role in uprooting
peasants and transforming them into wage workers.
Capitalists sometimes defend the exploitation inherent in capitalism by
claiming that the capitalist contributes to production by providing
money and the means of production, which he owns, to the production
process. This is a subtle form of circular logic, since it assumes
capitalist property rights in order to defend capitalism. âProviding the
means of productionâ simply means âallowing it to be used.â Granting
permission itself is not a productive activity, it does not produce
anything. If producers cease to produce, production will stop in any
society, regardless of the economic system. But if owners stop granting
permission, production is impacted only if their authority over the
means of production is obeyed. Their authority derives from the violent
and coercive mechanisms of the state, which ensures that capitalists
have this ability to allow or deny access to the means of production by
workers. Not only is âproviding the means of productionâ not a
productive activity, it depends on a system of organized, systemic
coercion to maintain the capitalistâs monopoly (or near-monopoly) of the
means of production. Capitalist exploitation of workers derives from the
power capitalists have over the means of production, itâs monopolization
in their hands. That power is used by them to gain extreme wealth at the
workersâ expense. It was originally created through conquest & coercion
and is maintained through state violence, typically in the form of
government enforcement of property rights.
Other workers, not capitalists, produced the means of production. The
capitalist obtains them with the money from previous profits. Those
profits in turn came from previous profits and so on back to the origins
of capitalism. Those original accumulations of money used to start this
whole process of capitalist accumulation came from fortunes made as a
result of conquest & direct expropriation (such as colonialism) as well
as fortunes achieved under pre-capitalist class societies such as
feudalism or slavery. Thus from a historical perspective capitalism
cannot be considered just.
A similar attempt to justify the exploitative nature of capitalism is
the claim that profit is the reward for taking risks. It is true that
investing usually entails taking risks (one could lose the investment),
but just because someone is taking a risk does not mean that s/he is
producing anything. Most human activity involves risks of some sort. If
a criminal robs someone at gunpoint s/he is taking a risk as well. S/he
could go to jail, the robbery could go wrong, s/he could get hurt, etc.
That does not change the fact that it is robbery. The same is true of
the risks taken by capitalists. The workers take as much of a risk, if
not more, as the capitalist. If the business fails the worker is
unemployed. The worker is then usually in a worse situation then the
capitalist because the capitalist is wealthy and can weather such a
situation much easier then those on lower levels of the hierarchy. In
addition, many jobs entail risks to workersâ life or limb, whereas
investment does not.
Capitalists like to claim that their wealth is the result of them
working hard by running their business, managing portfolios, etc. A
mafia boss also does lots of work to plan his robberies and keep his
illicit enterprise going but his actions are still theft. Many
capitalists donât even run a company, they derive their income solely
from stocks, bonds, interest, dividends, rent, etc. This attempt to
justify capitalist exploitation completely fails in these cases because
they arenât even running a company or doing any work at all.
Manipulating portfolios doesnât produce anything useful; sticking money
in the bank and letting it accumulate interest isnât hard work.
Some capitalists do choose to manage companies. Since they run the
business, they not surprisingly choose to pay themselves huge salaries
(along with other perks) that are derived mostly from the surplus value
exploited from the workers. While some forms of production do require
coordination, this does not justify capitalist forms of production or
the grossly disproportionate amount of wealth capitalists are given. In
a slave society slave drivers and owners would sometimes do coordination
necessary for production while making their slaves produce for them.
Just as it is possible to coordinate production without slave drivers it
is also possible to coordinate production without capitalists.
Coordination can be assigned to a worker (or committee of workers),
elected, recallable and mandated at worker assemblies and paid a normal
wage, just like any other task. There have been many examples of
worker-run cooperatives, run on a non-hierarchical basis without
capitalists, producing things just as effectively as a capitalist
corporation. There is no reason why individuals involved in coordination
tasks should be given greater wealth or power than those doing other
tasks, let alone given the dictatorial power bosses & capitalists have
over the workplace.
Like slave owners, capitalists may spend a large portion of their time
manipulating their underlings to maximize the amount of money they make,
but that time neither produces anything nor justifies the privileged
position of the capitalist. Most of the âworkâ done by capitalists
running a business is in reality manipulating workers so as to maximize
exploitation (thereby maximizing profit). Most capitalists hire people
to do whatever coordination and administration is necessary for
production and do little of it themselves. In contemporary capitalism
this has lead to the growth of a separate techno-managerial class that
controls the workers for the capitalists. In general the higher up the
hierarchy and the farther from the point of production the less genuine
coordination is done. A thief that does a lot of scheming is still a
thief.
In the United States the richest 1% of the population (the capitalist
class) owns more wealth then the bottom 95% of the population combined
[7]. It is physically impossible for that one percent to work harder
then the other ninety-five percent. There simply arenât enough hours in
the day. The average American worker works around 50 hours a week; for
the capitalists to work ninety-five times more then the average worker
he would have to work 4,250 hours a week! There are only 168 hours in a
week; itâs not possible for this wealth disparity to be the result of
capitalists working harder.
Capitalism is inherently authoritarian and anti-liberty. The structure
of a company (or state enterprise) is essentially totalitarian in
nature. There is a hierarchical power structure, with those at the top
exerting almost complete control over those under them. Those on the
bottom must obey those on the top. While there may be some amount of
consultation from the top to the lower levels, the same can be said of
any slave society. There are no elections, no voting. Those on top have
absolute rule. Capitalism, like all class societies, is an economic
dictatorship.
True, theoretically a worker can leave a job, but s/he must still sell
his/her labor to a capitalist if s/he wants to survive. Workers can only
change jobs if the economic conditions are good enough that they can
find a different job. However, that different job has the same basic
authoritarianism as the old one and so it isnât really an escape from
this. Under good circumstances you can switch bosses but most people
canât choose not to have a boss. This is not the result of some law of
nature but of the fact that the capitalist class has a (state protected)
monopoly over the means of production. The fact that one can quit a job
does not make capitalism just â if you could immigrate from a society
ruled by a totalitarian state that still wouldnât make totalitarianism
right. The same is true of economic totalitarianism. A slave that can
choose his/her master is still a slave.
Defenders of the capitalist system like to distract from this
authoritarian structure by babbling on about how theoretically it is
possible under capitalism for a person to go from the bottom of the
hierarchy to the top, joining the capitalist class. While most forms of
capitalism do have some degree of social mobility, apologists for
capitalism tend to overstate it. Only a tiny number of workers ever
manage to join the capitalist class. The few examples of workers who do
manage to join the capitalist class are usually from the better off
sections of the working class and often receive help from the state or
other members of the capitalist class. A person born to wealthy parents
will be much more likely to be wealthy as an adult than a person born to
poor parents; the odds are stacked. Even going from worker to petty
bourgeoisie (small business owner) is difficult to do. For the few who
even have the opportunity to set one up, most small businesses go under
within ten years and the majority do not become large businesses or
catapult their owners into the capitalist class. Often they just become
slaves to the bank. While there are occasionally exceptions, overall the
immense majority of people have little choice but to sell their labor in
order to survive. If all workers were able to rise out of the working
class easily the system would collapse. In order to have a hierarchical
system you have to have some on the top and others on the bottom.
Even if the amount of social mobility in capitalism were as great as
supporters of capitalism claim, it would not matter. If it is possible
for someone to move from the lowest position of an authoritarian system
to the highest position, it is still unethical because it is an
authoritarian system. If it were possible to go from homeless person to
dictator within a fascist system, fascism would still be wrong. In many
Leninist states there were individuals who went from being a worker to
being part of the ruling class, in some cases even joining the
Politburo, yet that does not make Marxist totalitarianism an acceptable
system. In Colonial Brazil, there were slaves who managed to become free
and even become slave owners themselves. It was as rare as workers
becoming capitalists in contemporary capitalism, but it did happen and
was theoretically possible for many slaves. Just as the theoretical
possibility of a slave becoming a slave owner does not justify slavery,
the theoretical ability of a wage-slave to become a capitalist does not
justify capitalism. The existence of social mobility does not justify a
social system.
Another way supporters of capitalist like to distract from the
authoritarianism of capitalism is to emphasize the market and downplay
or ignore wage-labor & the hierarchical aspects of capitalism. They
invent a fantasy world of people producing widgets & trading them for
thingamabobs and then pretend that this fantasy land has some
relationship to how a real-life capitalist economy works. We do not live
in a society of independent widget producers trading their products on
the market, we live in a society where most people have little or
nothing to sell but their labor. This fantasy neglects the fact that
wealth is extremely concentrated and the role of wage-labor, which is
extremely important as most people make their living by selling their
labor. This widget-trading fantasy ignores the inequalities of power
between workers & capitalists and so presents a false picture of
capitalism that makes capitalism look less authoritarian. Just because
markets exist does not make a system just. Markets existed in most slave
societies, that does not make slavery just. Markets reflect the will of
the wealthy & powerful, as more money can be made by catering to the
needs of those with more money.
No industrial society can be run along the lines of this widget trading
fantasy. Industry creates things like factories, mines and other
workplaces with a high division of labor and lots of people working
together in the same place. In industrial societies you have many people
using the same means of production (eg. a factory). Those means of
production are too big for a single individual to be able to use them
efficiently â factories require lots of people to work in them. A
society made up of independent producers presupposes that everyone has
their own means of production and then trades what they produce on a
market. An industrial society, by virtue of making the means of
production too big to be used by a single individual, makes such a thing
impossible. Factories and other large means of production can be
privately owned, with bosses telling the workers what to do, they can be
state owned, with state-appointed bosses telling the workers what to do,
or they can be held in common, with the workers themselves determining
what to do.
Capitalism can be contrasted with other forms of class society such as
feudalism and slavery. Class is another name for economic hierarchy. In
a class society some people have power and control over other people
with regard to economic matters. Those on the top of the hierarchy, who
exploit and live off the labor of those below it, are called the ruling
class.
In an economy based on slavery the ruling class is made up of slave
owners who exploit the slaves they own and live off their labor. The
slave is sold once and then belongs to that master until the master
decides to sell him/her. This differs from capitalism in that the slave
is sold once and for all whereas in capitalism the worker must sell
him/herself repeatedly by the day or hour or some other unit of time. If
the wage contract were made to last indefinitely, instead of for a fixed
period of time, it would in fact constitute full-fledged slavery. Thus
capitalism constitutes a kind of transient slavery repeated over and
over, which is why capitalism is also called wage-slavery. Examples of
societies based on slavery include the Roman Empire, ancient Korea and
the US South prior to the 1860s.
In feudalism society is divided into several classes with the nobility
on the top and the serfs on the bottom. The nobility lives off the labor
of the serfs who must give crops and various forms of unpaid labor to
their lords. Serfs differ from proletarians in that they have their own
means of production, land, and thus do not have to sell their labor to
survive. They must, however, give up a part of his/her product (crops,
usually) or part of the services of her/his labor to the ruling class.
Examples of feudal societies include medieval Europe and Japan [8].
The two main classes in a capitalist economy are the capitalist class
(or bourgeoisie) and working class (or proletariat). In the United
States, most people consider themselves âmiddle class.â This is a
useless term since almost everyone is considered middle class,
regardless of their economic situation, and it is thus of no use in
describing class hierarchies and their relations. You canât have a
âmiddle classâ that constitutes over 90% of society! The concept of the
âmiddle classâ in the United States acts to disguise the existence of
classes in America. Those who must sell their labor in order to survive
and do not have the power to hire or fire are members of the
proletariat. Those who are wealthy enough that they do not have to sell
their labor to survive (their income comes from stocks, bonds, rent,
etc.) are members of the bourgeoisie. Since the capitalists exploit the
workers, the interests of the capitalist class and the working class are
directly opposed. In almost all capitalist countries the working class
constitutes the majority of the population [9].
Sometimes other classes are present as well. Societies that have only
recently transitioned from a feudal to a capitalist economy usually have
a large number of peasants inherited from the previous economic system.
Peasants do not have to sell their labor to survive because they have
access to their own land and live off it. They are not capitalists
either, as they do not exploit wage laborers to make their living. The
development of capitalism usually transforms peasants into workers given
enough time.
The unemployed, or lumpen-proletariat, are another class. Unemployment
is a common byproduct of capitalism. Having part of the population
unemployed keeps wages down and makes it easier to control the workers.
If a worker knows s/he can easily find a different job elsewhere s/he
will be less concerned about being the victim of a layoff and can demand
higher wages, better working conditions, etc. It is much easier to
control workers when they have the threat of unemployment hanging over
their heads. A completely free market would tend to oscillate between
periods of high and low unemployment. When unemployment is low wages
rise and it becomes harder to maximize the degree of exploitation and
profit. This causes many capitalists to begin to replace workers with
automated machines (or find other ways of cutting costs, like layoffs),
as they cost less compared to paying workers high wages. However,
implementing more automation (and most other cost cutting) throws people
out of work, thereby increasing unemployment. This causes wages to fall
and makes employing workers cheaper. Thus, eventually unemployment
begins to fall again because it becomes more cost-effective to employ
workers as compared with increasing automation. This cycle then repeats
indefinitely. In practice, this cycle either does not happen or is
lessened because many states implement regulations and monetary policies
to ensure that unemployment does not go extremely high or extremely low.
The small capitalists, or petty bourgeoisie, (small business owners) are
a different class. Like the normal capitalists, they own means of
production (though usually only a small amount) and make profit through
employing wage-labor. Unlike the capitalists they do not own enough
wealth to live off it without working, but they also do not have to sell
their labor to make a living. Generally they do productive work
alongside the workers they exploit, and must do so if they expect to
survive. In practice, many are dependant on the bank, which means they
are dependant on large capitalists because they control the banks.
The managerial or techno-bureaucratic class controls the working class
(and sometimes other classes) for the capitalist class. This group
includes most of middle management, bureaucrats, technocrats, etc.
Theyâre basically part-worker and part-owner. They have to sell their
labor to survive but also have the power to hire and fire workers. Under
some forms of capitalism the techno-managerial class is virtually
non-existent â most of their functions are either unnecessary or
performed by capitalists themselves.
Some, while acknowledging that contemporary capitalism is flawed, claim
that modifying capitalism through a series of reforms can avert these
problems. Some say that more regulations will fix the problems. Others
say that fewer regulations will fix the problems. Some call for massive
state programs to cure those ills, while others claim that abolishing
large state programs will end these problems. Some propose seemingly
radical programs that, under the pretense of completely re-organizing
society and abolishing capitalism, actually maintain the foundations of
the capitalist system. While some of these reforms may produce minor
improvements, they do not address the root problem and at best treat the
symptoms rather then the disease.
The idea, supported by many on the right, that a more laissez-faire form
of capitalism will fix all of itâs problems is based on a selective
reading of evidence. Their methodology is to select prosperous
countries, claim they are examples of the âwonders of a free marketâ (no
matter how extensive government intervention in the economy is) and to
select poor countries and claim that they are examples of how government
interventions ruin a country (no matter how little government
intervention exists). In the early 1990s supporters of âfree marketâ
capitalism pointed to Argentina as evidence that their theories were
correct â itâs prosperity at the time was claimed to be proof that
deregulation and the free market are the answer. Several years later
Argentina went into a depression and the economy imploded. The âfree
marketersâ then changed their tune â the problem, they claimed, was that
Argentina had lots of extensive government interference in the economy.
Some even claimed it was âsocialist.â When the country was prosperous
they claimed it was âfree marketâ but when it became less prosperous
they claimed it was âsocialist.â
The âfree marketâ crowd also likes to compare countries with high
degrees of state intervention in the economy and countries with lower
intervention in the economy, like North Korea and South Korea. Aside
from the Koreas comparison being invalid (the South received far more
foreign assistance than the North) the fact that South Korea is
frequently cited as a âsuccess storyâ for the âfree marketâ shows how
selective their idea of a âfree marketâ really is. South Korea
industrialized through a series of five year plans. Thereâs another
famous country that industrialized through a series of five year plans:
the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Their concept of a âfree
marketâ is so fickle that it leads them to make a semi-command economy â
South Korea â one of the countries they commonly cite as an example of
how great âfree marketâ capitalism is. In reality, the reason some
countries are rich and others poor has more to do with imperialism then
with the degree of government intervention. There is no correlation
either way.
Their selective identification of âfree marketsâ and âgovernment
interventionâ isnât limited to comparisons between countries. A
corporation is basically a centrally planned economy. The different
parts take orders from those higher in the hierarchy, they do not trade
with each other. Modern capitalism is really a series of interlocking
command economies (multi-national corporations) which trade with each
other (just as the Soviet Bloc countries traded with each other).
Corporations are actually the opposite of markets, the fact that they
are defended under the laissez-faire philosophy further shows how facile
their support for the âfree marketâ is. Capitalism itself requires
government intervention in the economy in the form of enforcing property
rights. Without this the system will implode. Advocates of laissez-faire
capitalism typically respond with something along the lines that itâs
the governmentâs role to protect âindividual rightsâ and so such
intervention is justified. But left-liberals and state socialists say
the same thing â that the kind of intervention they advocate is
justified by âhuman rightsâ or something along those lines. The
laissez-faire capitalist is no more against âbig governmentâ than the
left-liberal or state socialist, they just disagree on which state
policies should be implemented. In reality, whenever people who claim to
advocate âshrinking governmentâ in favor of âfree marketâ capitalism get
in power they implement extensive government interventions that benefit
the rich (beyond enforcing private property). âFree marketâ regimes have
a long record of giving large subsidies to big business, funding the
military-industrial complex, following a foreign policy designed to help
maintain a favorable foreign investment climate and even imposing
tariffs when needed to support weak domestic industries. âFree
enterpriseâ means state protection for the wealthy and market discipline
for everyone else.
Many left-wing reformists claim that âregulated capitalismâ and/or a
social democratic welfare state would somehow fix all the problems that
come about as a result of capitalism. Itâs rather difficult to do this
when the state serves the interests of the capitalists. As a result many
regulations and state programs that are put into effect frequently end
up favoring large corporations rather then ordinary people, creating a
corporate-welfare state. Examples of this include the billions of
dollars given by capitalist governments to corporations (both directly
through subsidies and indirectly through government contracts), laws
restricting the ability of workers to organized against capitalists and
government manipulation of monetary policy to favor capitalists. Such
policies tend to be implemented by both left-liberal regimes and also
right-wing âfree marketâ regimes.
When unrest from the lower classes (proletarians, peasants,
lumpen-proletarians and sometimes a section of the managerial class)
becomes large enough it can become beneficial for the capitalist class
and/or state bureaucracy to implement Social Democratic welfare measures
that ameliorate the miseries of the lower classes. This worker-friendly
strategy can be implemented either by individual companies or through
state programs (or both). These policies can decrease unrest by
decreasing the miseries of the lower classes (and thereby reducing their
propensity to revolt). Large amounts of unrest can disrupt production
which thereby interferes in the ability of capitalists to make profits.
If this disruption is great enough it becomes more cost effective for
capitalists to implement welfare policies to decrease unrest rather than
put up with constantly disrupted production. If unrest becomes great
enough it can even threaten to bring about revolution and topple
capitalism. For the capitalist class a welfare state is vastly
preferable to an anti-capitalist revolution and will implement one if
doing so will stop a revolution.
Social democratic welfare states, however, still leave the capitalist
class in charge. If the social democratic measures do their job worker
militancy and unrest will subside over timeand these welfare measures
will no longer be as cost effective as they were when there was more
rebellion (if worker unrest does not subside then capitalists tend to
move towards imposing a right-wing dictatorship to suppress the workers,
unless the workers overthrow the capitalists). The capitalists will then
begin to dismantle the social democratic state and implement policies
more favorable to their interests. Since the capitalists are still the
ruling class there is little to stop them from doing this aside from
renewed rebellion on the part of the exploited. In the end social
democracy ends up being at most a temporary stopgap measure â a band-aid
on a cut artery.
Some who seek to reform capitalism actually claim to oppose capitalism,
but what they desire to implement are in reality unusual forms of
capitalism, since they retain wage-labor. The most famous capitalist
ideology claiming to be anti-capitalist is Marxism. They advocate the
creation of a centrally planned economy, with a âworkersâ stateâ (in
practice a one-party totalitarian state) controlling the entire economy.
This is not anti-capitalism but state monopoly capitalism. As most
people would still be wage-labor under this system it is a form of
capitalism (albeit, in a rather perverted form). Instead of being
exploited by individual companies workers would be exploited by the
state, which would be the new boss. The new capitalist class would be
made up primarily of government bureaucrats, politicians and party
members who would profit from the exploitation of the working class just
as traditional capitalist classes do. There is in essence very little
difference between having a single corporation control the entire
economy and the centrally planned economy advocated by state socialists.
Simply uniting administration of the economy into a single giant
bureaucracy does not abolish capitalism. Centrally planned capitalism is
still capitalism.
The conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States in the
second half of the twentieth century was, despite what the propaganda of
both sides claimed, actually an inter-imperialist conflict between two
rival capitalist empires. It was not a class struggle between workers
and capitalists (as Marxist propaganda claimed) or between freedom and
tyranny (as American propaganda claimed) but a conflict between
different capitalist classes over how they would divide the world
between them. The daily life of citizens in each empire was not greatly
different; both practiced a variation of the same economic system.
Neither side was actually interested in the liberation of the oppressed.
There is a common flaw in all of these proposals to reform capitalism.
None of them actually fix the root problems of the wage system. Workers
under laissez-faire capitalism, social democracy and state socialism
would still be exploited. Authoritarian workplace relations would still
exist under all these reformist proposals, workers would still be
subject to an economic dictatorship. These reformist ideas do not fix
any of this, at best they just treat the symptoms. None of these things
can be changed by reforming capitalism, there are inherent in the
system. Capitalism must be abolished.
IV. Towards a Classless Society
Instead of a class society, dividing society between haves and
have-nots, we should have a society in which equality and freedom
prevail in production. All should have equal access to the means of
production so they can produce what they need to survive without having
to take orders from an owning class. None should have power over
another; all forms of hierarchy should be abolished. The means of
production should be put under the control of the producers. Instead of
economic dictatorship, institute self-management where the producers
control their own activity instead of taking orders from bosses. The
factory to the worker, the land to the peasant.
This could be brought about through the direct expropriation of the
means of production by the lower classes (possibly preceded by a general
strike) and placing the means of production under the control of those
who use them. All workplaces would be taken over by the people who work
in them, followed by a reorganization of the economy to meet the needs
of ordinary people instead of profits for a few. This would involve a
mass rebellion against established authority â a revolution â and the
overthrow (and abolition) of the government.
There would probably be an alliance between the proletariat, peasants
(in countries where they still exist), lumpen-proletariat and a section
of the more radical parts of the managerial class. An alliance between
the workers, peasants and unemployed would have to form the core of such
a revolution since they are both the most exploited members of
capitalist society and are also the vast majority. A revolution aiming
to establish a classless society cannot happen without the support of
the majority of the population since such a revolution would deliver
control of the economy into their hands and, if they did not desire a
classless society, would simply give up such control to reestablish a
classless society.
The revolutionaries should also be on guard against those who would take
advantage of the revolution to establish themselves as a new ruling
class (possibly while also claiming to abolish classes). Many past
revolutions that might have resulted in a classless society have seen
small determined minorities take advantage of the overthrow of the old
rulers to establish themselves as a new ruling class and launch a
counter-revolution against those pushing for a classless society. During
the French revolution the Jacobins took advantage of the overthrow of
what was left of Feudalism to implement capitalism and suppressed
attempts by the sans-culottes (and others) to build a classless society.
In the Russian revolution the Bolsheviks seized power and proceeded to
implement state monopoly capitalism while violently liquidating
syndicalists, anarchists and others who advocated a classless society.
It happened again in the Iranian revolution, which religious
fundamentalists used to gain power. To combat this the revolutionary
movement must not only attempt to overthrow the current ruling class but
also prevent those who would like to become a new ruling class from
seizing power (and overthrow them if they do). Anyone who advocates
economic hierarchy advocates a class society â even if they say they
donât.
The managerial class would probably split into numerous different
factions in such a revolution. This class has contradictory interests.
On the one hand, it is above the workers (and peasants and unemployed)
and has the primary function of controlling them for the capitalist
class. Their interests thus tend to clash with the workers since they
are above them and have control over workers. On the other hand, they
are also subordinated to the capitalist class and are under their
control. Thus they also have antagonistic interests against the
capitalist class. In an anti-capitalist revolution one faction would
probably try to preserve its privileges and side with the capitalists
against the workers, attempting to maintain their traditional position
of controlling the workers for the capitalists. Another faction would
probably decide to unite with the workers against their common oppressor
â the capitalist class â even if that meant giving up their privileged
position over workers. A third faction would seek to overthrow the
capitalists and, instead of establishing a classless society, attempt to
establish itself as a new ruling class. Initially they would ally with
the workers against the capitalist class and probably pretend to have
the same goal â a classless society. Once the old ruling class is
overthrown, however, they will come into conflict with the workers as
they attempt to establish themselves as new rulers and put the workers
back in their place. State socialist ideologies, including Marxism, will
probably be most attractive to this third faction in a revolutionary
situation.
After seizing the means of production and overthrowing the ruling class
the economy should be reorganized on the basis of self-management into
confederations of worker collectives. Workplaces can be run by
non-hierarchical worker assemblies in which everyone has a say in
decisions proportional to the degree they are affected by them. Wealth
should be redistributed on a more equitable basis. The details of the
specific arrangements of such a society should be left to those living
in it.
Former capitalists would lose all their old privileges but would be
allowed to become equals in the new society, with the same status as
former workers. No one should be coerced into participating in any
organization. Anyone preferring not to participate in these self-managed
confederations of worker assemblies would be allowed to leave at will
and live as hermits or form whatever alternative social forms they
desire, so long as such relations are entirely voluntary and
non-hierarchical. Such people should also be given access to enough of
the means of production to sustain themselves (failure to do so would
essentially coerce them into participating in the worker assemblies). It
is virtually impossible for capitalism (or slavery or feudalism) to be
restored in such a manner, through purely voluntary means, because it
will be difficult to find people willing to volunteer to be poor and
exploited and because capitalism is based on coercion.
Many authoritarians claim that people are too stupid (or evil) to run
their own lives and thus must submit to a ruling elite [10]. Hierarchy,
they argue, is absolutely necessary. This claim is not only wrong, but
also self-contradictory. If people are too stupid or wicked to rule
themselves then they are certainly far too stupid or wicked to rule
others. Those who are on the factory floor everyday and thus knows how
it works will generally tend to be much better decisions makers with
regard to the factory then some executive or stockbroker on the other
side of the country who rarely sets foot in the factory and thus knows
little about it.
Actual implementation of worker self-management has shown it to be just
as effective as capitalist production and sometimes more so. During the
Spanish, Iranian, Russian and other revolutions workers often seized
control of the factories (and peasants the land) and ran them
themselves. They were just as effective as capitalist enterprises under
the same conditions and often more so. Unfortunately capitalists through
brute force ended these attempts at self-management. Formation of worker
cooperatives within private capitalist societies (such as the mondragon
cooperatives) has also been effective at production. They generally have
a difficult time competing with capitalist enterprises because they do
not have access to enough of the means of production to compete
effectively â the capitalists have a (state protected) near-monopoly on
the means of production. Most cooperatives also do not receive the
billions of dollars in state subsidies that large corporations do. But
under equal circumstances, self-managed workplaces are just as good at
production as capitalist enterprises [11]. Capitalist forms of
production are not necessary but are exploitative, authoritarian and
cannot be reformed. Itâs time for capitalism to go.
[1] Retired workers are still part of the working class, as are children
of workers dependant on their parents
[2] Carson, Kevin âThe Iron Fist Behind the Invisible Handâ
http://www.mutualist.net/mutualistnetresourcesandinformationonmutualistanarchism/id4.html
[3] âArenât the Enclosures a Socialist Myth?â
http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secF8.html#secf84
[4] Marx, Karl Das Capital Part VIII
[5] El Gran Pueblo by Colin MacLachlan and William Beezley, p. 91â92 and
A Short History of Latin America by Benjamin Keen and Mark Wasserman, p.
202â203
[6] âWhat About the Lack of Enclosures in the Americas?â
http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secF8.html#secf85
[7] Gutman, Huck âEconomic Inequality in USâ
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0701-05.htm
[8] This comparison is of course oversimplified since this essay is
about capitalism, not pre-capitalist societies. Actual historical feudal
and slave societies were more complex then are presented in this
simplified comparison and there were significant variations as well.
[9] Those capitalist countries in which workers do not make up the vast
majority are underdeveloped countries that still have a large percentage
of peasants. In those countries, workers and peasants added together
constitute the vast majority of the population.
[10] See the essay âOn Authorityâ by the capitalist Fredrick Engels for
an example of this
[11] McCain, Roger âCooperation: The Proper Study of Economics,â
International Journal of Social Economics, 1993, v. 20, no. 10, pp.55â78